Gaza: Growing humanitarian needs

Humanity & Inclusion, present in Palestine since 1996, is responding to the emergency. The organization has started to distribute essential goods to families displaced by the violence and is ready to provide rehabilitation and psychosocial support.

Mental health support

HI’s teams and volunteers are currently assessing needs inside shelters crammed with displaced people. HI expects to launch psychological first aid.

People are now in “survival mode.” Psychological first-aid sessions are one-to-one conversations to help stabilize and calm people. This is mostly done through active listening, giving them the space, the safety and the time to talk about whatever they want, and helping them feel back in control. Their concerns are acknowledged and their feelings of distress and anxiety are validated.

As soon as the security conditions permit, HI's teams will organize recreational activities for the children. These activities—mainly games—are important to help restore a sense of normality and ease their anxiety.

Distribution of kits and devices

HI’s team and volunteers have assessed the needs in 33 shelters and have begun providing essential assistance, including the distribution of crutches and wheelchairs, hygiene items, dignity kits and first aid kits.

“More than 1 million displaced people in the Gaza Strip are under dire circumstances, with no food, water, electricity, or fuel. HI and its partners rely on a network of 300 trained volunteers to serve as first-line responders. Since the start of hostilities, some of them have found refuge in many shelters where they identify the needs of persons with disabilities, injured or traumatized people, women, and children. They also provide hygiene, dignity, and first-aid kits to the displaced Palestinians after evacuating their bombed homes.”
—Noor Bimbashi, HI Advocacy Officer for Palestine

Prevention messages 

HI has sent a prevention message to the population via SMS: “Take shelter away from the street and windows. Keep an emergency go-bag to hand. Use stairs to evacuate.”

HI reached an initial 500,000 people with this message, and the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) has forwarded it to an additional 1 million people. Together, this outreach has covered the most severely affected areas in the Gaza Strip, from the northern regions down to the south.

The danger of contamination

HI is looking to launch rapid awareness-raising sessions on explosive ordnance risks and conflict preparedness and protection. The explosive remnants and unexploded bombs present in the rubble are a serious threat to the population. People collecting objects or looking for survivors may inadvertently come across an explosive device. Simple and practical risk awareness messages will inform people about the right actions to take and the behavior to adopt in such situations.

Rehabilitation for the injured

As soon as the humanitarian ceasefires are in place, HI will begin emergency rehabilitation services and psychosocial support (PSS) for the people injured and traumatized by the violence. 

HI’s team in the West Bank will also visit Palestinian patients and their families who left the Gaza Strip before the hostilities began to receive medical treatment in Ramallah. HI plans to provide psychosocial support to some 35 women and 10 children.

The safety of our staff

HI continues to monitor the well-being of its staff in Gaza. So far, all employees are coping, although some have had to move from the north to the south. In some cases, their homes have been damaged or destroyed. HI is on standby to provide psychological support.

HI is charging up the phones of the team in Gaza, local partners and volunteers to maintain contact with them and keep operations going.

More damage has occurred in the street on which HI’s office and guesthouse are located, and the office windows have been broken.

Actions guided by humanitarian principles

• Humanity: alleviating human suffering wherever it is found

• Neutrality: humanitarian assistance must be provided without engaging in hostilities or taking sides in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature

• Impartiality: humanitarian relief must be guided solely by needs and priority must be given to the most urgent cases of distress

• Operational independence: humanitarian action must be autonomous from political, economic, military or other objectives with regard to areas where it is being implemented

About HI in Palestine 

HI launched its first project in Palestine in 1996. For the last 27 years, our teams have been responding to the needs of the Palestinian community–both in West Bank and Gaza–across several sectors. HI Palestine is currently running projects in Disaster Preparedness and Risk Reduction, Physical and Functional Rehabilitation, Economic Inclusion and Economic Recovery, and Inclusive Education.